Wednesday, April 8

Having been labeled as an anarchist how could I not rise to the bait ? FC are currently running a very early public test version of the Commons District for AoC on the test server, an area larger than I expected but as visually stunning as I'd come to expect for AoC.

View from the commons looking back at Old Tarantia

Entrance to the graveyard

Landscape looking back towards the Commons from the rear of the graveyard

This is from a system not good enough to run AoC to it's full beauty (forget DX10) but nonetheless fine eye candy.

13 comments:

It figures that this content becomes available just when my (involuntary) 3 month period is up again. I'll be popping back in when it goes live, provided I can convince the Funcom payment system to renew my subscription not as a 3-month cycle but a one-month cycle.

On that note, do you know if it's possible to transfer game-client data to a new PC? I'll be putting together my new kit tomorrow and it'd save some substantial download time.

I guess you should be able to back up your game folder onto disc and transfer over, never had to try? Have fun building your new rig, exciting stuff :)

Commons will probably make it on to the live server ready for the games year from launch anniversary. As you would have expected from the locale most of it initially is in a tight built up area with alot of climbing opportunities, the screens I posted are from the area beyond that.

The itemisation/rpg patch is on live right now, class balance seems to be a case of gimp everyones best dps output, increase mana and stamina costs, heals remain the same but health pools have massively increased, it's a mess right now but we'll see how it spans out. Gear has become a little too important now, not sure if its as item centric as WoW as my testing is limited, group run tonight so we'll see how things play out in group play.

"So I have to level grind Suhaya a few levels before she can get in? :-("

Are you missing out on some quest locations? My current lvl 76 PoM has just started to run out of decent quests so this area level seems to be the best for a recognised gap. Atzels and Kheshatta should be giving you enough content from mid 60's up, Ymirs fills the gap prior to that nicely :)

Both of those area's gave me just enough (red coloured) quests to get by on for one tenth to one fifth of a single level before I had to revert back to bounty grinding until I hit another level. Since I hated the grouping interface and partcile clutter in AoC I didn't do much grouped content there. Without that it's grind, grind, grind. That was when I first played it. The experience was so thoroughly off-putting that I didn't revisit Suhaya on my snd foray into Hyboria.

It's odd. Vanguard has more grind than AoC, but because that game is more hardcore in everything and AoC is so much the guided tour at first, I despise grinding in AoC while it's part of the fun in VG. I don't have to make sense if I don't want to!

I have been gone for two weeks, and I already have a weird fear of posting over me. Like I should say something before I can say what I want to say. But since that makes no sense at all, I'll just ramble a bit more and maybe finally get to the point.

Hyboria looks as beautiful as always. I think when I return I'll wake up Thoay and see all that will be new to her.Besides the commons area there is more new 80-ish content, right?

The only new 80's content is the Slaughterhouse, a solo instance that can be repeated like a Villa and then theres the dungeon Xibaluku, situated in Thunder river its a nice group instance with some very nice encounters, there is some hard to get at content in there reliant on a random drop which spawns a boss who otherwise won't appear and drops a social pet, in this case a life size ghost, nit of a weird one that one ?? not sure what the thinking behind that was?

Other than that we know that House of Crom has been finished as an area but they are currently deciding what to put in, it's a large indoor area that will house multiple dungeons, most people are guessing they want to launch it at their first birthday in May.

The current test version of the itemisation/RPG patch is proving a dramatic change that will affect all gameplay across all levels, they are playing silly buggers with class balancing by mercilessly nerfing anything vaguely considered OP while boosting previously useless feats/spells. It's going to need alot of tweaking before it goes live.

Uhoh! That kind large-scale revamping usually isn't a good sign. Often means someone who used to sit on top of Quality COntrol and keeping sweeping changes out no longer has a job, doesn't care anymore or is overruled by a cure or die directive from above.

As an after thought I would advise you both to wait before resubbing if you plan to revisit Hyboria, give it until 1.05 hits live by which time they should have also added Crom, the Commons and come up with a paid server transfer option - my guild is very nice and there are distinct advantages being on a server with a larger population.

@Lani - this has been in the pipeline for months now, it's a double edged sword, I'm not fond of over reliance on gear but then again there has to be motivation for people to complete end game content.

As far as class balancing goes it's going to be problematic, they have too many classes IMHO and dug themselves into a corner, we are waiting to see what this new vision is going to be...looking at the wider picture I cant help but think that part of the process is to increase the leveling time so it takes longer to reach 80 but in order to do that and retain interest they need to add more 'fluff' to keep people interested, crafting certainly doesnt provide any 'fluff' currently.